Today is Mother Teresa’s feast day. While her writings and her example continue to inspire many, a far greater fact is that her work continues today, in the lives of her sisters, the Missionaries of Charity. With every smile they give and every person they take in, they carry out God’s plan for the poor of the world which only began with Mother, but which continues in the same work and same spirit to this day.
They were her great joy in this life, while she waited for Jesus in the darkness, until she finally went home. In the Rule for the new community (which, of course, Mother Teresa hand wrote on some spare sheets of paper) the very first line reads: “The General End of the Missionaries of Charity is to satiate the thirst of Jesus Christ on the Cross for love and souls by the Sisters.” The poor of the world needed help, but first off, Jesus wanted these sisters to come to Him. Because He loved them, like he loved Mother Teresa, and He wanted them to share that with the world. The sisters remain today the greatest tribute to Mother Teresa’s life, and to her joy and her spirit, which they preserve in their own communities.
A much lesser tribute is a brief poem, which I’ve written for them on this special day. For the sisters in saris:
“For the Missionaries of Charity”
Signs in the sky have ended
Do not look in the firmament
For God hides in broken lives
Whose lot is permanent
Glory to God in the lowest
In the poorest of the poor
In knotted hair and broken teeth
The face of Christ endures
And withered hands are left that way
That we might stretch our own
And be like God, adopting them
And giving them a home
God’s dwelling is on the streets with men
And all the mad things they think
Their shortened breath and muddy feet
I was thirsty and you gave me drink
They’ll fall asleep on your couch
Or laugh at their fellow neighbors
Even when gratitude is gone
There’s no hiccup to the labors
By the hands under the white linen
God has caressed all wounded things
From eyes beneath that blue hem
They drink from eternal springs
People are changed by being looked at
And being asked their name
These few essential things
Earn these sisters their fame
Mother Teresa painting, by Michele Gautsch
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Above Image: Robin Ervolina, Missionaries of Charity (Rome)
